Welcome back to the third week of the Spotify quiz series. Eleven contestants have completed the first two week of Spotify quizzes. The leaderboard now looks like this:
| Participant | Week 2 | Total |
| Sheik Yerbouti | 20 | 40 |
| Geoff (1001) | 19 | 38 |
| John (2loud2old) | 19 | 38 |
| jprobichaud | 18 | 38 |
| Rich Kamerman | 18 | 38 |
| Tony | 18 | 38 |
| Jim | 17 | 36 |
| J. | 17 | 35 |
| Max (badfinger20) | 18 | 35 |
| Paul | 15 | 34 |
| Chris (moviesandsongs) | 14 | 33 |
I scored 19/20 in the third week. You can compete at:
https://www.sporcle.com/games/MSUKent/artist-by-popular-spotify-songs-iii/
In other news, I’m terrible at catching live gigs but my wife gifted us tickets to see The New Pornographers. It was an unusual gig – usually they’d play in a smaller venue, but because it was part of the New Zealand Festival of the Arts, they played the Michael Fowler Centre, a seated venue that usually hosts classical events. It has a 2,200 capacity, but was only half full – not surprising when there’s a bunch of classy gigs at the Festival. I would have also liked to have seen festival curator Laurie Anderson, Weyes Blood, and Nadia Reid.
It was a difficult task to play in front of a subdued, seated audience – two ladies in their seventies were seated in front of me – but the band were professional. It was a slightly altered lineup – long time members A.C. Newman, Neko Case, and Todd Fancey played, as well as newer members Joe Seiders and Simi Stone. They were augmented by a couple of ring-ins; a young bass player and an incredibly tall keyboard player who covered Kathryn Calder’s vocal parts.
The most impressive part of seeing The New Pornographers live is their vocals – Neko Case was impressive, and drummer Joe Seiders is an important part of the vocal mix. A.C. Newman doesn’t have a distinctive voice, but he sounded gorgeous, and showcased his falsetto in ‘The Laws Have Changed’. Highlights included the ensemble vocals on ‘Testament To Youth in Verse’, and ‘Dreamlike and On The Rush’, which was subdued on record but was a great rocker live.
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Whew, almost missed the last one (I tend to stumble with rap acts) but one of the song titles seemed familiar and I remembered the artist’s name. 20/20 for me with 1:46 left on the clock.
That’s the one I missed, although I think the order is random – it mixes them up differently each time.
20;20. Fairly easy for the first batch, last two points made me think. Second time the red-headed stranger has shown up in a quiz recently.
As I said to Rich, I’m pretty sure it randomises the order each time, so your last two probably won’t be everyone else’s. Perfect score!
Interesting. I think I’m still making up ground, though.
You made up ground on me, everyone else has scored 20s so far.
Yeah, but you don’t count, right? Or do you?
I am not an official contestant.
You are the master of ceremonies
20/20 with 2:55 to go, making full use of the surnames only element
Works for band names too….
18/20.The rapper and cheeseburger artist caught me out.
Good work. Others may disagree, but I don’t think you’re missing much with the cheeseburger guy.
SCORE
19/20
The rapper I guessed…it was the…uh modern version of Alice Cooper…not better mind you…just modern.
Good score! He’s not even that modern right – his heyday was twenty years ago?
Well…compared to Alice…he is.
20, with 3:01 remaining. The emphasis on the 90s didn’t hurt!
And good to read about NP!
Great work, you’re ahead of me over the first three weeks.
19/20 for me. Always one pesky one that I can’t figure out.
You would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling pesky ones….
19/20 – don’t know much of Jimmy Buffett (the one outlier of an easy quiz this week)
Feel like he’d be a given for an older American demographic. His music hasn’t aged well, possibly because it wasn’t very good to start with.
20/20 with only 14 seconds to spare.
Love the New Pornos BTW, I should be seeing them for the second time this summer. They’re like Broken Social Scene, though, you never know who will be in the band when you see them.
I was pretty impressed by the keyboardist taking all the keyboard parts and Calder’s vocal parts. Talented ring-in.
Last time I saw Calder but not Case but I think that additional keyboardist/vocalist was also with them.
I scored 19 this week. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy…
Never seen the New Pornographers live… They’re definitely a band I’d love to catch at some point.
Great work, although I don’t get the Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy reference?
It was a shake of the head more than a reference. Y’know, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy… probably not something that works when typed.
Sometimes I forget your actual name isn’t J. …
coming in strong in week 3 with a 19 to keep me in the mix. Girl group stumped me. Glad you enjoyed NPs!
Good job! There are at least 11 more (the person’s still making them, I think) so plenty of time to catch up.